


Of Kili and Kittens

by Koneko713



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fíli is a cop, Kíli is a pet shop owner, M/M, Semi-Graphic Cat Birth, Separate Childhoods, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 00:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koneko713/pseuds/Koneko713
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili's a rookie cop, on duty for the first time.  Kili owns a posh pet store.  When they meet the attraction is instant, but neither of them knows how deep their bond really goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tally said "posh-pet-shop-owner Kili and rookie-cop Fili" and like the well-trained authorpuppy I am I leapt to obey.  
> My deepest, sincerest apologies to my Heart and Soul readers, this was supposed to be 2k words and has instead become a monster that I will finish when I return.  
> Minimally edited because I am leaving in.........shit, 4 hours.

Fili supposed he was lucky.  His very first day on the job and it _wasn’t_ spent sitting in the car the entire night.  He’d heard horror stories of rookies who dropped out after months of duty without a single thing happening.  Dwalin had just finished the tale of his first night out—they’d had a call about a gunfight in a local park and arrived to find a group of teenagers chasing each other with bb guns.  The older cop had then leaned the driver’s seat of their car back and—to all appearances—gone to sleep.  Fili sighed, running a hand through his recently buzz-cut hair, still not used to it.

Dwalin showed no sign of movement, and Fili reached around his seat in an attempt to find the controls to lean back as well.  He’d only been scrambling for a moment when the scanner buzzed.  Dwalin was upright and responding before Fili managed to untangle his arms from under the seat.  He strapped himself in as the dispatcher informed them of a robbery at a local address, somewhere he’d never heard of, and Dwalin pulled out, sirens wailing.

By the time they arrived on the scene it had mostly calmed down.  There was no sign of the thief, and another pair of officers were questioning the man who appeared to be the store’s owner.  The young man was dressed in what looked like pajamas, baggy sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt.  Fili noted absently that he was standing in the spray of broken glass from his front window in nothing more than socks.  His long dark hair was half escaping from a sloppy ponytail, and he was clutching quite possibly the ugliest cat Fili had ever seen. 

Dwalin flashed ID at the other cops, they nodded at him, and he led Fili into the scene.  It was a pet shop, that was obvious, though it was unlike any other pet shop Fili had ever seen.  Several dogs cocked their heads curiously from large kennels in the back, liberally supplied with cushions and toys.  A glass door to the right allowed a view into a room that seemed filled with a massive carpet-covered jungle gym, including a large number of tunnels with glowing feline eyes staring from them.  Aside from the broken front window nothing seemed to be disturbed.

Fili glanced under the counter at the front of the shop, locating a locked cash box and a wide variety of brushes, combs, balls, cat toys, and lint rollers.  “They didn’t get anything,” he told Dwalin, doing his best to sound confident and official.  He glanced over at the owner, relieved to see that he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the newcomers.  “Who would rob this place though?  It’s not like there’s anything valuable—“

“Excuse _me?_ ”  Suddenly Fili was backed into the counter by the dark haired young man, his brown eyes flashing with anger, still holding the fat, fluffy, flat-faced cat in one arm.  “Nothing _valuable?_   I can tell you’re not the type to have pets so I’ll put this in terms you can understand.  That—“ he pointed at a reddish dog with long floppy ears, “is a purebred coonhound.  He’s worth about eight hundred dollars.  That—“ he indicated a thin, nervous looking dog in the largest kennel, “is a greyhound.  She’ll sell for about a thousand.  In there I have three pure Siamese queens, who will go for a thousand each.  And this girl—“ he lifted the white-and-orange cat in his arms, “is a world champion show cat and her kittens will be worth fifteen hundred dollars when they’re born.”

Fili had no idea what to do with this boy—really, he couldn’t have been older than twenty—who had just backed a uniformed cop into his shop counter without a trace of fear, still clutching his precious cat.  A glance up informed him that Dwalin and the other two cops were paralyzed with laughter.  Yeah, yeah, the rookie getting shouted down by the civilian, very funny.

He straightened as well as he could, disappointed to find that he was still several inches shorter.  “My apologies.  You’re right that I don’t own pets, I didn’t know how much someone could make from taking your animals.  Will you tell me what happened please, mister…?”

The other man sighed, running a hand through his hair and pulling even more of it out of the tie.  “Just Kili, no mister, and no surname thank you.  I’m sleeping in the cat room right now, and I heard the window break and the dogs go off.  As soon as I opened the cat door they ran.  I couldn’t see anything about them, just that they had long hair.  I called 911 and these guys showed up five minutes later.”  He was stroking the cat distractedly, and her tail was starting to lash in annoyance.

Fili eyed her suspiciously, inching back out of claw range.  “Why are you sleeping in the cat room?”

“Amy,” Kili replied, holding up his armful.  “I need to be there if she goes into labor and my apartment doesn’t allow pets.  I have an enclosure set up to keep the other cats away.”

Fili nodded as if it made perfect sense to sleep in your shop in case a cat started having kittens overnight.  “And if you hadn’t been here, you think that someone may have stolen your animals?”

Kili nodded, pulling the cat closer and ignoring her wriggling.  “It does happen.  They can sell them for a lot of money, even if it’s not full price, and they got them for free.  They can forge or take the official papers that prove they’re purebred.  Usually they don’t treat the animals well at all either.”

He finally squeezed too hard and the cat slithered free of his arms with a small mew.  Immediately she made a dash for the open broken window, ignoring Kili’s cry.  Fili didn’t hesitate, bending to scoop the cat up with an arm around her middle.  For a moment he didn’t know what to do, standing there with a pregnant cat dangling from his hand.  Then she started to wiggle uncomfortably and without thinking Fili slid his other arm under her back legs, supporting them as he straightened to hold the cat to his chest.

She looked up at him, blinked eyes that didn’t face quite the same direction and seemed too large for her flat face, and began to purr.

“Um…” Fili looked helplessly at Dwalin, who had managed to quell his laughter but looked like it was taking a lot of effort to keep it that way.  The older cop was no help, waving his hand in a clear gesture of ‘get on with it’.  “Here,” he muttered, offering his purring bundle to Kili.

The man was smiling now, and he made no move to take the cat.  And he seemed to be taking another, more thorough look at Fili.  The blond couldn’t help but blush at the frank interest in Kili’s brown eyes, and he heard Dwalin burst into guffaws.  Kili waited until Fili was literally squirming under his scrutiny before he finally reached out to pluck the cat from Fili’s arms.  His hands brushed Fili’s without a hint of subtlety, Fili felt his face darken further, and he was starting to worry that Dwalin might hurt himself laughing.

“Thank you, officer…?” he said, voice lower and less hysterical sounding.  Fili swallowed.  “Fili…ah, officer Durin, please,” he muttered, refusing to run fingers through his hair again, as much as he wanted to fall back on the familiar gesture.  “You’ll have to ask my superior, but I’m sure that we can spare a car to keep an eye on your shop for the rest of the night.  And we’ll let you know when we find out who did this.”

“Well, officer Durin, I feel much better knowing that you and your fellow officers are keeping an eye on me.”  The little prick _winked_ at him.

Fili gave him what he hoped was an official looking nod and dodged around him to stand at Dwalin’s side.  The bald man was folded over and wheezing with laughter.  Fili gave him a nudge.  “We should get back to business, shouldn’t we, Fundin?” he asked, trying hard to hint and not let Kili know just how flustered he was.  As Dwalin finally got control over himself he reached out a hand to shake Kili’s.  “Mister Cook, I’ll call for a squad car to drive by every few minutes for the rest of the night.  Call if you need anything.  I’m sure Durin here would be happy to oblige.”

To Dwalin’s credit he didn’t even flinch when Fili “accidentally” stomped on his foot.  The other officers had left already, and Kili followed them to the door to lock it behind them, for all the good it did with a gaping hole in the window.  Fili was sure he could feel eyes locked on his ass, and did his best not to walk stiffly.  Dwalin was still having far too much fun.  “Well done, rookie.  Your first night out, and you snag a hot piece of tail—“

“Dwalin!” Fili exclaimed, horrified.  From the open window behind them came Kili’s voice.  “I can still hear you, you know.”

Fili wished he could melt through the pavement.

***

The next evening saw Fili standing in front of Kili’s shop again, wondering what the hell he was doing there.  Well, he knew what he was doing there, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he was thinking coming back.  The man intrigued him, fine, and there was something painfully familiar about him, just out of Fili’s reach.  He sighed, pushing the unlocked door open.

Kili had taped a sheet of black plastic over the broken window, and the lights were on in the shop despite the setting sun slanting in through the door.  He was bent over the counter, poring over a sheet of paper.  He was dressed casually, in jeans and a black t-shirt that clung to his biceps nicely, Fili couldn’t help but notice.  Amy was curled up in an oversized cat bed on the counter beside him.  She lifted her head and let out a ‘mrrrr’ when Fili entered.

Kili looked up at that, and he grinned widely when he saw who had come in.  “Officer Durin, I believe.  How can I help you today?” he asked.

Oh, Fili was tempted to flirt back.  Kili was an attractive boy to be sure, and he was clearly interested.  Though looking at him in the daylight, his hair pulled back in a neat bun and his clothes fitting perfectly, Fili had to admit he missed the mussed look of last night.

He shook his head furiously, and from Kili’s smile he was certain the other had at guessed at the direction of his thoughts, at least.  He cleared his throat.  He wasn’t some blushing virgin, he’d had relationships before, but for whatever reason Kili set him off-balance like no one else ever had.  Kili was still watching him, clearly entertained.

“I said we’d keep you updated.  A local college student showed up at the community hospital with glass embedded in his hands.  It matches your window.  He’ll be charged.”

Kili’s sigh of relief was completely genuine.  “Oh thank god,” he murmured, rubbing one hand over his eyes.  “I was hoping you’d get him.  If he’d gotten any of my animals…” he broke off, reaching over to scratch Amy’s ears.

The cat purred contentedly, pink tongue protruding slightly and her bulging eyes closing.  Fili eyed her skeptically.  He’d really never seen an uglier animal in his life.  “Are you sure she’s a world champion show cat?”

Kili puffed up indignantly, just as he had last night.  “I’ll have you know, Madame d’Amore has been winning shows since she was a kitten.  Her kittens will be champions.”

Fili couldn’t help it, he let out a snort.  Kili glowered at him for a moment, before he broke down laughing too.  “Alright alright, you can see why I call her Amy.  And I admit that Persians are not my favorite breed.  She _is_ a sweetheart.” He rubbed the cat’s ears fondly.

“Why is she here?”  Fili asked, curiosity piqued.  “If your apartment doesn’t allow pets you can’t possibly be breeding them.”

Kili scowled.  “Her owners are more interested in the winnings she brings in and the profit they can get for her kittens than they are in caring for her.  They were looking for another cat through me and I offered to take her until the kittens are a few months old.  At least this way I can ensure they get the best care.  And I get a percentage of the profit from the kittens.”  He shrugged.  Fili reached out tentatively to stroke Amy’s long fur.  Kili smiled at the contented little mewing sound she made.

“She likes you, you know,” he said earnestly.  “I’m sure she would appreciate it if you checked in on us for a while.  At least until the window’s fixed.”

Kili’s completely serious face and tone at that startled a laugh out of Fili.  Kili favored him with a slow grin that lit up his brown eyes and made Fili’s heart beat faster.  “I’d quite appreciate your presence too, officer Durin.  Or would you prefer Fili?”

The blond was completely disarmed by that smile.  And he wanted nothing more than to see it again.  “Hmm.  I think Fili’s fine.  I’ll keep an eye on you and Amy, I promise.”

***

The next week Fili visited Kili’s shop every day before work.  Kili usually didn’t have any customers when Fili came in, but he did notice that the animals in the shop changed almost daily.  Kili informed him of every animal who found a home.  In fact, he always seemed to know their life stories and shared them with Fili enthusiastically.  He never seemed upset when an animal left, though he clearly cared for every one of them.

Fili quickly found that he’d never met anyone quite like Kili before.  The boy made quite a bit of money from his business—he bought animals from breeders (only reputable ones, Kili frequently reminded him) and sold them to people willing to pay for a cat or dog with a long jumped-up pedigree.  Despite the amount that people would apparently spend on a Siamese cat or Labrador, Kili lived fairly sparsely.  The vast majority of his money went to comforts for the animals in his store.  On Fili’s day off he stayed later than usual, watching as Kili took the dogs out for a run after closing and sat a full hour in the cat room, until his usual black t-shirt was completely covered in cat fur.

Amy got the most attention, but for whatever reason she had decided Fili was her favorite.  He couldn’t walk across the store without her twining around his ankles and yowling to be picked up.  The evening ended with Fili seated on Kili’s camp cot in the cat room, Amy purring in his lap, and Kili chattering merrily while the other cats clambered all over him like a living jungle gym.

Fili, in turn, shared with Kili some of his more entertaining stories from work.  That was one thing being a small town cop had going for it; his work stories were more funny than horrifying.  There was the time he and Dwalin responded to a possible medical emergency and found a teenager who had decided to nap in the grass of her front yard.  Another potential emergency turned out to be a completely stoned college boy lying in the street with his head on the curb because he was “just chilling where it’s most comfortable, man.”  Possibly the best story Fili had to tell was when a man called the non-emergency line to report a “suspicious peanut” in his backyard.  Kili laughed until he cried at that one.

To Fili’s consternation, Kili continued flirting with him, but didn’t seem eager to take it farther than that.  He’d never been good at deciphering what people wanted from him.  He was ashamed to admit that he usually didn’t get hints people were dropping until their tongue was in his mouth.  In the end he decided to let Kili lead, as frustrating as it was that Kili didn’t seem to want to lead anywhere.

Exactly a week after the break in, long after the window had been repaired, Fili walked into a distinctly different atmosphere.  Amy wasn’t napping calmly on Kili’s counter but was pacing the shop, occasionally stopping to let out a loud ‘me- _ow_ ’.  Kili was as nervy as the cat.  “I checked her temperature, she should have her kittens within the next 24 hours,” he said, not leaving the area behind his counter but squirming restlessly at every cry from the cat.

Fili reached for his hand instinctively and Kili gave him a shaky smile.  “I’m sorry, I get jumpy before every birth.  It’s always fine.”

“Do you want me to come in earlier tomorrow?” Fili asked.  He was fairly sure the cat would have given birth by then, but he would like to see the kittens, and make sure Kili hadn’t gotten too jittery.  And as much as he hated to admit it, he was fairly concerned with the outcome too.  He’d become very attached to Amy over the last several days.

Kili’s eyes lit up at the offer.  “That would be wonderful!  I can handle it on my own, of course, but it’s always nice to have someone there to help.”

Fili was not particularly keen on helping, but he wasn’t about to deny those wide brown eyes.  And who knew how long the cat had been in this state?  She might well have her kittens overnight and he would just get to coo over newborn kittens.  He felt momentarily guilty for wishing that Kili would have to deal with it on his own, but shook it off.  He liked him, but he thought there should be a rule about when he had to deal with slime for Kili’s sake.  After the third date, possibly.

Fili’s luck had apparently run out, though.  When he pulled up outside Kili’s shop the next day in the midafternoon, he couldn’t see Kili behind the counter.  The open sign was still, there, however, so he went ahead in.  No sign of Kili anywhere.  Then a bone-chilling yowl echoed from the cat room and the dogs set up a howl in response.  Fili groaned quietly, tentatively cracking the door.

The cats who were normally loose in the room were confined in kennels along one wall, and a few were vocally expressing their disapproval.  Kili was squatted on the floor behind a thin cloth netting, arms around his knees.  Amy was curled on her side on a pile of blankets half under the foot of a folding cot.  As Fili watched her body spasmed and she let out another yowl.

“Is everything alright?” Fili asked, horrified.

Kili glanced at him for a split second before his attention focused back on the cat.  “This is normal.  If you could flip the open sign around that would be great.”

Fili obeyed and trotted back to crouch beside Kili.  The younger man had clearly been stressed earlier; his hair was mussed like he’d been running his hands through it and his eyes were bloodshot.  Now, though, he was focused and coldly calm.  The cat had flopped onto her side and lifted one back leg to lick frantically at herself.

When Fili shifted his weight and accidentally bumped Kili the brunet shot him a tight smile.  “It should be any minute now,” he said slowly, apparently paying more attention to Amy than to reassuring Fili.  “It’s been three hours but since she’s a Persian it takes long—oh!”

Amy flipped around to face forward, mouth open and panting frantically.  Fili wrinkled his nose at the slimy slippery looking _thing_ she was expelling.  Kili was tense beside him as Amy twisted to lick at it.

“Is that…?” Fili started to ask, but his question was answered as the cat pulled away a clear membrane to reveal that the weirdly greenish wet bundle was, in fact, a kitten.  She licked at it vigorously, cleaning out its mouth and nose before washing against the lay of its fur.  Fili watched with bated breath until it squirmed and let out a squealing mewl of protest.  Kili’s breath rushed out in a huge sigh of relief, though he didn’t relax.

Amy didn’t seem certain what to do with this thing now that it was breathing and squeaking.  After sniffing it over she returned to licking herself.  Only then did Kili step in.  He reached forward to pick up the kitten and pressed it to Amy’s belly.  She uncurled and stared at him with her eyes crossed and tongue sticking out, as attractive as always.  Kili sat back on his heels, a small smile on his face as he watched the kitten suckle.  Fili couldn’t help but grin at the expression of complete contentment.

“It’ll probably be about ten minutes before the next one comes along,” Kili said, picking up a cloth from beside him and wiping off his hand that had touched the wet kitten.  “And Amy will let us know when that one’s on its way.”

“How many times have you done this?” Fili asked, watching Amy groom her new offspring.  Already its white fur was fluffing out, and it didn’t look so frighteningly small.

Kili shrugged.  “I don’t remember how many, exactly.  Enough to know what I’m doing.  Persians are harder though, they have big heads…”

He trailed off, attention back on the cat, who had started having contractions again.  Fili waited as the next kitten was born, bathed, and Amy nudged it up to her belly to nurse. Beside him, Kili let out a delighted laugh.  “There, see?  She’s figured it out now.  And that one’s a little boy!”

“How can you tell?” Fili asked.  They were so tiny, squirmy, and fluffy, he couldn’t imagine how Kili was so confident.

“Look how he’s orange all over.  I’d say, ninety percent chance that’s a boy.”

They watched the pair suckle, fur slowly puffing out, white and orange pressed side by side.  The third kitten arrived minutes later, the delivery as smooth as the last.  Fili turned to grin at Kili.  “You know, once you get past the initial gross, this is actually really cool.”

“Cool?  We’re eleven now?”  Kili teased, finally taking his eyes off the cat.  Fili stuck out his tongue at him.

Amy yowled as contractions resumed and Kili was once again steely-focused on her.  Fili leaned into his side, feeling him quivering all over with the continuing tension.  “I hope this is the last one,” the brunet murmured.  “She’s getting tired.”

Fili had to agree, Amy looked like she was very done with this whole ordeal.  She didn’t even finish cleaning off the next kitten before she went back to grooming herself.  Kili tried to nudge her head back toward the kit, an urgency in his movements that hadn’t been present before, but she was determined to wash under her own tail.  Eventually Kili gave up, scooping up the wet bundle and wiping clear membrane from around its mouth and nose with a clean cloth.  But suddenly Amy was wriggling and mewling, dislodging her first three kittens and rolling in her nest of blankets.  Kili scrambled gracelessly to his knees beside her, hands still full.

“The next kitten’s coming fast.  Here,” he thrust the kitten and Fili, grasping the other’s wrist and forcing him to take it.  “Rub her with the cloth, like she licks them.  Get her breathing, I need to help Amy.”

The kitten was dwarfed by Fili’s palm and his fingers were thicker than its legs.  He picked up the cloth in his other hand and rubbed tentatively at the kitten’s back, against the lay of the fur as Amy did.  The tiny body was fragile-feeling and terribly, terrifyingly limp.  “Kili…I don’t know if she’s okay,” he whispered.

“Keep rubbing,” Kili grunted, a calming hand on Amy’s head as he watched her.  “You should be fairly firm, but be careful of her.”

Fili obeyed, though the kitten’s continued stillness had his heart beating wildly and tears welling up.  “Come on, baby, please breathe,” he said, shifting his grip.  “Please please breathe just once…”

It seemed she was listening.  First a squirm of those tiny legs, the delicate head lifted from his palm, ribs expanded in a gasp, and pink mouth opened in an indignant sounding _squeak!_

“She’s fine!  She’s alive!”  Fili gasped, looking up in disbelief and joy.

Kili turned to smile at him, affection clear on his face as he reached out for Fili’s kitten.  “Of course she is!  I wouldn’t have given her to you if I thought you couldn’t—mmph!”

Fili had no idea what drove him to do it.  The happiness and accomplishment of saving her still singing in his veins, maybe.  Whatever it was he was suddenly leaning in, holding the kit out of the way to the side, and Kili’s lips were warm and chapped against his.

It was a little bit awkward, both of them trying to keep dirty hands out of it despite Kili pushing in for more, insistent against his mouth.  They pulled apart momentarily for air, and because a squirming in Fili’s hand drew his attention back to the kitten.  Kili grinned, a little out of breath already, and gently lifted her out of Fili’s palm.  Even as he cradled the kitten close he leaned in again.

As Fili suspected, Kili did nothing halfway, and that included kissing.  He worked Fili’s mouth open gently, just the right amount of teeth brushing through parted lips before he sank them into Fili’s bottom lip and _tugged_ him forward, still without bringing sticky hands into play.  Fili went willingly, waiting as Kili leaned back and reached to gently place the kit beside her four brothers and sisters.  Then Kili turned back and _attacked_ his mouth, and oh, he’d wanted to do this since he’d first laid eyes on Kili—was it only a week ago?

They couldn’t keep this up, precariously balanced and not daring to touch.  It seemed far too long and far too short a time before they were breaking apart, panting.  Kili’s eyes were wide and his lips visibly red and swollen from worrying teeth, and it was the most gorgeous sight Fili had ever seen.  They stared at each other for a moment, then Kili gave him that dazzling smile and cocked his head inquiringly.

“So, officer Durin, want to go out for dinner sometime?”

***

It was later that Fili really thought about what had just happened, and had to excuse himself on the pretense of fetching coffee for himself and Dwalin.  He made it around the corner before bursting into hysterics, hand over his face, shaking with either laugher or tears, he wasn’t entirely sure which himself. 

What the hell had he just done?  He had just impulsively kissed a man he’d only met a week ago, after helping a goddamn _cat_ give birth.  Not only that, that same man had then asked him out and he had said _yes_ , while they both had fucking _afterbirth_ still on their hands.

What had Kili done to his nice, boring life?

 _Improved it vastly,_ some part of him whispered, and he shook his head hard as he finally pulled himself together and headed down the street toward Starbucks.

***

Of course, much as he berated himself for it, he was there to pick up Kili at 6 o’clock on his evening off, two days later.  Kili looked at his beat up old car and wrinkled his nose at it.  “Don’t you have a paying job?” he asked teasingly.

“I’m saving,” Fili replied, patting the insulted vehicle.  “It runs fine, so why spend on something flashier?”

“Because flashy is fun,” Kili stated, hopping into the passenger seat willingly enough.

“Funny coming from you,” Fili teased as he strapped himself in and started the engine.  “At least I have a crappy car by choice, not because I spend huge amounts of money on animals that aren’t even mine.”

Kili pouted, but acknowledged the truth of the statement with a one-shouldered shrug.  “So where are we going for dinner?” he asked.

Fili shrugged.  “Depends on what you want,” he replied, “Italian, Chinese, seafood…”  He hadn’t really needed to continue, Kili’s eyes lit up at the first option, and he nodded enthusiastically.  “I like Italian,” he added unnecessarily.  Fili laughed at his unrestrained excitement.

As far as dates go, it wasn’t half bad.  Kili ordered some kind of pasta dish that Fili couldn’t even pronounce, something with chicken and mushrooms.  Fili tried not to stare at Kili’s obscenely _long_ tongue as it swept creamy sauce off his lips, his own much simpler pizza dangling unnoticed from one hand.  The little _shit_ was doing it on purpose, smirking blatantly at him and…yes, that was a foot rubbing subtly against his ankle.  Fili was proud of how steady he kept his voice, matching Kili’s complete nonchalance perfectly.  As for Kili, he didn’t show the slightest trace of disappointment, but simply redoubled his efforts.

As Fili had suspected, Kili was all of twenty years old, and therefore couldn’t order alcohol.  He whined at Fili a little, trying to convince the elder that he _needed_ wine with his pasta, and was met with a raised eyebrow.  “Should have thought of that before asking out a cop, shouldn’t you?”

“Ah, my mistake,” Kili sighed, though his wandering feet and flirtatious glances didn’t stop.

A short argument over the bill later—eventually they settled on splitting it—and they were leaving, Kili as giggly as if he had been allowed his wine.  He’d found it didn’t take much to make Kili giggly (the brunet insisted it was manly laughter, not giggling, but Fili disagreed).  The drive home was spent in merry abuse of a local political figure who, as it turned out, they both disliked.

Kili requested to be dropped off at his apartment, and Fili obliged.  It was a fairly small place, close to the edge of town, and in an area Fili recalled as one of the few that his class had been warned to watch for potential drug problems. 

Of course Kili noticed his sidelong glances, and gave a long sigh.  “Yes, I do know what some of my neighbors get into, and no, I have no part in it.  How would I even afford it?  And anyway,” he winked at Fili, “If I was involved in that sort of thing, it’d be awful stupid of me to go on a second date with a cop.”

Fili couldn’t hold back the completely idiotic smile at that, and he wasn’t all that surprised with Kili leaned across the console, his seatbelt clicking in protest as he pressed into a kiss.  It was close-mouthed, a simple brush of lips, but no less sensual for it.  Kili pulled away just long enough to extract a promise from him, demanding that he swear to stop by in the next few days to see the kittens.

It took several more kisses, which grew progressively more involved, before Kili clambered out of his car and trotted up the sloping path to the door of his building.  Fili watched him go, telling himself it was to make sure that none of those neighbors Kili had mentioned tried anything on him.  It was when Kili turned and smiled at him that he couldn’t even fool himself with that excuse anymore.  He wasn’t even checking out Kili’s ass (as any sane person would be), but admiring the play of moonlight in his long dark hair, the ever-present glint of mischief in brown eyes, the way one eyebrow cocked in what looked like a challenge before he disappeared through the door.  There was a warm fluttering lightness in his stomach.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so content and he wanted nothing more than to chase after Kili, sweep him up, never let him out of his sight again.

 _I am,_ Fili thought, _so very fucked._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Dumps 95% of the plot on you all at once*  
> I wouldn't have split this into two if I hadn't been leaving, so the break is not well planned at all. Maybe I'll consolidate it into a oneshot eventually.  
> Also, this pushes the teen rating a bit. Let me know if you think I need to up the rating to mature.

The day before he was scheduled to meet with Kili again, Fili’s job finally got exciting.  He joined Dwalin in the squad car and the elder cop found a good place for them to stake out for the night.  Fili knew there was a frequent problem with people speeding along this particular stretch of country road, but he had yet to catch any of them.  He had almost dozed off when Dwalin nudged him.

“Would I be right in guessing that you’ve been seeing Kili Cook again?” he asked, a threatening undertone to his voice that Fili didn’t quite like.

“Why?” he dodged.  He couldn’t see why his relationship with Kili was any of Dwalin’s business anyhow.

Dwalin ran a hand over his bald head with a sigh.  “Easy, boy, I don’t mean any harm.  I just know the lad.  Picked him up a few times when he was a teenager, and I’ve been keeping an eye on him since.  So I have to tell you this: If this goes to shit and you two hurt each other, I’ll have to whip both your asses, understood?”

Fili opened and shut his mouth soundlessly a few times, before he shrugged.  “I’m not planning for either of us to get hurt out of this, Dwalin,” he muttered.

“No one ever does,” was the only response.

Something else occurred to Fili.  What had Kili done that required Dwalin to ‘pick him up’ as a teenager? _Not my business,_ he decided eventually, _if Kili wants me to know, he’ll tell me._   It couldn’t have been too bad or Dwalin would have told him.

His thoughts were thankfully interrupted before he could work himself up too much.  A car flashed by them, and he didn’t even need to glance at the radar to know they were going far too fast.  Dwalin peeled out from where they were parked, sirens wailing.  Fili gripped the handle riveted to the ceiling above his head, swaying with the motion of the car.  The sedan in front of them was driving erratically, swerving about in the lane, and didn’t seem about to pull over for the siren wailing at their tail.

Dwalin hit the gas and drew level with the car.  That was apparently what it took for driver to realize that he couldn’t outrun them and instead he elected to pull out onto the shoulder.

“Stay in the car,” Dwalin instructed tersely as he pulled in behind the Corolla.  Fili nodded, hand dropping to his weapon at his side.  He hadn’t had to use it yet, hadn’t even drawn it in fact, but he was ready for it anyway.

Dwalin climbed out, approaching the driver’s side, stalking gait betraying his tension.  He pulled the flashlight from his belt and shined it into the car, waiting for the driver to roll down his window.  Fili noticed frantic movement in the backseat and cracked open his door, ready to make a dash.

He could hear Dwalin through the gap.  “License and registration please.  What you got there in the back?”

At that the rear passenger door opened, spilling out a teenager.  The boy hit the ground in a graceless flop, but was instantly scrambling up and away.  Before Dwalin could even react Fili had thrown open his own door, taking off after the fleeing figure.  Dwalin was shouting behind him, probably for him to stop, but Fili couldn’t hear him over the dizzy pounding adrenaline in his ears.

The boy was weaving, stumbling occasionally, but long-legged and fast enough that Fili couldn’t run him down for several blocks.  At last, he was in range to launch himself at the boy, catching him around the waist and sending both of them crashing to the ground.  He recovered faster, rolling over to kneel with a knee on each of the suspect’s upper arms, groping at his belt for his cuffs.  Then Dwalin was there, reaching around Fili to force the boy’s mouth open and pry out the plastic baggy that had been stuffed chipmunk-like into his cheek.

“Do you have any idea what might have happened if your teeth had torn this, you dumbass?” he shouted at the boy, waving the white powder in his face.

His only response was a garbled “don’t taze me bro!” that was mostly obscured by giggling.  Fili finally worked his handcuffs loose and wrenched the boy’s hands behind his back.  He was talking now, loud and fast and random, but didn’t seem to realize that he was facedown on the asphalt and restrained.  Dwalin sat back, ran a hand over his bald pate, and grinned at Fili.

“Good catch, rookie,” he said, “Good catch.”

***

Fili had scraped his hands and knees in that dive onto the pavement, but he soon found there was a definite benefit to the injuries.  Kili was most appreciative of his battle scars, drawing his hands up to his mouth for gentle kisses whenever the opportunity presented itself.  Which was often.

Unfortunately, by the time Fili’s next day off and their second date came around Kili judged him well-enough healed for a more physically strenuous activity.  Specifically: ice-skating.

“I feel like a high-schooler on his first date,” the blond complained, scooting his way around the rink with both hands firmly gripping the rail.

Kili laughed where he skated nearby, no more graceful but significantly more daring.  “That’s what you get for being a cradle-robber, gramps!” he teased.

“Only by five years, you little shit!” Fili growled, making a grab for Kili on his next pass.  Kili dodged his hands with a snort, trying to pull off some kind of twirl to face his date and landing right on his rump.  Fili winced, but the brunet bounced back to his feet, brushed himself off, and resumed his teasing circling just out of reach.

“Five years is a long time,” he said earnestly, successfully executing a maneuver that took him in to plant a kiss on Fili’s lips and back away before the elder even regained his balance.  “I mean, you could be taking advantage of me.”

Fili snorted.  “As if.”  As if anyone could ever take advantage of confident, self-assured Kili.  The boy was utterly impossible, wild with his long hair and shining silver studs in his earlobes today.  He was now attempting to skate backwards, and the shredded ice from the rink showed clear on the rear of his dark jeans.  He made Fili feel younger than he had in years.  In fact, being around him made Fili realize that he’d grown up when he was about twelve, under the expectations on him.

That was another thing.  People were staring at them—partially because any gay couple got stares around here, partially because he and Kili made such an unlikely pair—but the miracle of it was that _Fili didn’t care._

The pressure he’d grown accustomed to his whole life seemed to melt away around Kili.  He felt like he’d known the boy his entire life, like he’d never been this comfortable around another human being.

 _Bad sign,_ part of him said, _get out now before it gets too serious._

But then Kili was turning, widening brown eyes at him before smiling from ear to ear, and that part was silenced in a wave of something that could only be love.

***

They picked up crappy Chinese take-out, and Kili parked his car in a place he knew.  It was at the top of a hill over the town in the valley, where they could watch the sun set over the mountains while they ate.  Kili flipped his lanky body around in the driver’s seat, draping his legs out his open window and resting his head on Fili’s shoulder.

Fili felt he could purr from contentment, leaning his cheek against Kili’s silky hair between bites.  The brunet slurped away happily at his noodles, heedless of the aches he must have had from him many falls.  He seemed to be daring Fili to comment, slurping progressively louder until Fili finally shrugged him off.

“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” he grumbled.  “Don’t play with your food.”

Kili crossed his eyes at him, selecting a long noodle and sucking up the entire thing in one go.  “But it’s _good_!  Here, try some.”

Fili started to protest that he had his own food, but Kili took advantage of his open mouth to pop a bite of noodles in.

Fili’s lips closed automatically to chew.  He glared at Kili, who grinned back at him, unfazed.  “Alright, it’s good,” he muttered.

Satisfied, Kili flipped around to lean on him again.  They ate in companionable silence for a moment, before Kili spoke again.  “Actually, they didn’t.”

Fili sat up and looked enquiringly at him.  Kili himself seemed surprised at the comment.  “They didn’t what?  _Who_ didn’t what?” he asked.  Kili shook his head.

“Hey, no backing out.  You’re not a teenager on Facebook, you can’t say something and then insist it’s nothing.” Fili said sternly.

Kili grimaced.  “I could.  But let me guess, you’d pull the cop thing and interrogate me until I gave anyway?”

Fili nodded.  He’d do no such thing; if Kili really didn’t want to talk about it he didn’t have to.  Fili wouldn’t force him.  But after that token protest Kili was giving in, pulling his legs back in through the window and running a hand through his long ponytail.

“I was a foster kid,” he murmured at last, so quiet Fili could barely hear him.  “I don’t even know who my real parents were, or what happened to them.  I had a lot of ‘mothers’.  Maybe one of the early ones tried to teach me manners, but I don’t remember them.  Mostly the later ones assumed I already knew that sort of thing.  I had to pick up on what I was and wasn’t punished for, usually.”

Several minutes of silence followed.  Kili was clearly embarrassed about spilling that and Fili considering.  He looked over at the boy, noting at the way he’d ducked his head and hidden his face behind the curtain of his bangs, and decided to go for it.

“I was in the system too,” he muttered, reaching over to lay a hand on Kili’s where it rested on the gearshift.  His head shot up in startlement, finally looking at Fili again.  The blond nodded confirmation.

“My parents went backpacking for a week.  They left me with a family friend, Bofur,” he explained, trying not to let his voice shake.  He’d never told anyone this.  Dwalin knew, but he hadn’t been _told._   “They never came back.  Once they were declared missing, Bofur had no legal claim on me, and I went into the system.  I was six.  I was only shuttled around for a couple years before my uncle found me.  He hadn’t been speaking with my parents, so by the time he came looking for me I was pretty hard to find, even for a big deal lawyer like him.  Dwalin helped him out, too.”

He gave a shuddering sigh.  Kili shifted to lean on him, not saying anything but clearly attentive and the warm support was welcome.  “They found bones in a gorge near where my parents were hiking, fifteen years later,” Fili continued softly.  “They can’t be certain, but they think it’s them.”  His throat closed and he stopped talking before he could make an even bigger idiot of himself.  Kili finally looked away from his face, extracting his hand from under Fili’s and tracing nonsensical patterns on the elder’s wrist with one long finger, not facing him again.

“Dwalin probably mentioned that he knows me by now.  And most likely my last name.”  Fili nodded, Kili’s eyes locking onto him in the rearview mirror.  The younger squirmed, and he shifted to put an arm around Kili’s shoulder, balancing his food in the other hand.  “You don’t have to—“

“I want to,” Kili interrupted firmly.  “Gotta work on that trust thing sometime, right?”

Fili scowled, but didn’t try to stop him again.

“The Cooks were an older couple I stayed with from when I was thirteen till I was sixteen.  They were almost ready to legally adopt me.  I had some weird last name from my first foster family.  I changed it and everything.  Then Dorothy was diagnosed with cancer, and, well, they decided they couldn’t handle me on top of that.”  His voice was emotionless and flat, and Fili pulled him closer, unsure how much comfort he could give.

“I went a little wild for a while after that.  Dwalin picked me up as a runaway…four times, I think?  He was always so damn _nice_ about it too!”  Kili laughed at the memory, almost fondly.  “He kept telling me that I ‘really wasn’t a bad kid.’  I can’t tell you how much that pissed me off at the time!”

Fili couldn’t help but laugh at that.  He could just imagine Kili insisting that he was a little terror, when Fili honestly didn’t think he’d ever met a gentler soul.  The tension was broken and Kili leaned away, squirming out of Fili’s grip and digging into his food again.  Fili remembered the bite that had been forced on him earlier, and proffered a piece of his chicken.  “Want to try it?” he asked, trying not to sound tentative.  _You are an_ adult, _for heaven’s sake._   “I had some of yours.”

Kili opened his mouth expectantly, and Fili obediently fed him the bit.  Of course, being Kili, he latched his mouth around the chopsticks before the blond could pull them back, sucking and licking lewdly at them.  “Brat.  I hope you get splinters from that,” Fili mock-grumped at him, and Kili smirked.

***

A quick stop off at Kili’s shop to check on Amy and her kittens (little squirming bundles of fluff now, though they hadn’t opened their eyes yet) and Kili started home.  Fili assumed he was going to be dropped off at his place, but when Kili bypassed the turn to his apartment he started to be a little worried.

“Kili, where are you going?” he asked.  He got a wide-eyed innocent look in return.

“I thought you might want to hang out at my place for a while.  Watch a movie or…something.”  Oh _God_ that ‘something’ sounded suggestive.  But, on the second date?  It was probably innocent, Fili told himself.  He was just projecting his own desires onto what Kili said.  And he certainly didn’t have a problem with watching a movie, possibly couch cuddling…

Almost as soon as the door clicked shut behind them Fili found himself pinned against the wood with Kili’s tongue in his mouth and a hand working at the fastenings of his pants.

So very _not_ innocent, then.

“Fili, Fili, Fili, want you to fuck me now, Fili, Fili, fuck me now _please._ ” That lilting, chanting incantation of his name should not be so goddamn _arousing._

Kili was definitely talented with his tongue and apparently very eager to demonstrate that fact.  Fili moaned into the kiss, submitting almost against his will because oh how he wanted this.  Kili’s body was slim and hard and pressed flush against his, pinning him in place, and his hands came up to grip Kili’s waist and pull him in tighter for more.  At last he wrenched away, turning his head to escape Kili’s lips.  He did his best not to look at Kili’s lips slick and glistening, or brown eyes gone even darker with lust.

“Kili, are you sure you want to—“ Kili gave a long-suffering groan and kissed him again, canting thin hips and grinding them into Fili’s.  Well, _that_ left no doubt of Kili’s desires, anyway.  Fili made another token protest, an entirely unintelligible sound swallowed by Kili’s mouth, before he surrendered eagerly to wandering hands and tongue.

***

It was several hours later that Fili awoke.  His body was still limp and warm and sated.  There was no moment of disorientation; it would take more than a short nap to make him forget what had happened earlier.  What _was_ unexpected was the lack of a warm body beside his in the bed.  He turned his head, blinking in confusion, glad as the blankets shifted under him that they’d had the presence of mind to at least wipe up instead of sleeping sticky.  He couldn’t turn his head far enough to locate Kili as he was lying on his stomach, so with a groan the blond turned himself over.

The boy was sitting on the pillow, legs drawn up and clutched to his chest, staring fixedly into space.  He’d found a pair of boxers and pulled them on, and seemingly hadn’t slept at all, going by the rings under his eyes and his jittery, unfocused gaze.

“Hey,” Fili murmured, pushing himself up on one elbow.  “What’re you doing?”

Kili focused on him vaguely, and gave a huge yawn.  “‘M not sleepin’,” he slurred, almost tipping over and catching himself at the last second.

“Why on earth not?”  Fili reached out to manhandle Kili down so he was at least in a lying position, though awkwardly sideways on the bed.

“Don’t wanna,” Kili whined.  “’s too good, too happy right now.  If I go to sleep I’ll wake up and it’ll just be a dream.”

Oh, poor broken child.  He’d lived his whole life learning that every time you found something good and stable and happy something would take you away.  Fili sat up to better maneuver Kili, who put up small protests but allowed himself to be pulled around until he was curled up with his back to Fili’s chest.  The fabric of his boxers rubbed at Fili’s bare thighs as he wriggled into a more comfortable position, and laid his head on the elder’s arm.

“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” Fili breathed, pressing kisses to the back of Kili’s neck and shoulders.

“Promise, Fee?”  Something about the small, childlike plea jolted Fili almost to his core.

“I promise, Kili,” was all he said, pulling Kili closer and draping his other arm over his waist.  He felt the moment when Kili drifted off into sleep, the lines of tension in his body melting away, and Fili followed soon after.

***

It was absolutely incredible how quickly and thoroughly Kili had managed to insinuate himself into Fili’s life.  He texted the boy as soon as he woke up, usually midmorning.  They chatted back and forth all day, Kili making ridiculous commentary on his customers, and Fili trying to make his daily routine sound less boring than it was.

He would drop by Kili’s on the way to work and spend an hour there playing with the animals and his—well, they hadn’t said the word out loud, but Kili was definitely his boyfriend.

Amy’s kittens grew day by day, fat fuzzy little bellies filling out and it wasn’t long before they could crawl around and mewl loudly whenever their mother dared to leave the nest.  The five of them were incredibly different in personality, something Fili hadn’t expected from cats.

The orange male was the largest and the loudest, bowling over his siblings and demanding his mother’s attention with loud squeaks.  The two orange-and-white kits were inseparable, always curled in a little ball of fluff.  The white kitten, the first born, was the runt, and she made up for it with an impressive set of lungs.

Out of all of them Fili’s favorite by far was the little girl he’d saved when they were born.  She had a beautiful white coat with orange and black patches, that Kili called a calico.  She was quiet and sweet, and learned Fili’s scent quickly.  Kili said she never mewed except when she smelled Fili coming in.

He was there the day that most of them opened their eyes at last.  The little orange one raised his head and startled Fili with lidded blue eyes and a frantic hissing.  He jerked back into Kili who, never one to miss an opportunity to cuddle, wrapped wiry arms around his torso and pinned him in place.

“He knows your voice and your scent, but actually seeing your face threw him off,” the younger explained.

Fili laughed, leaning back into him and craning up into a kiss.  “I’m surprised you didn’t take that chance to comment on my looks.”

Kili grinned, pushing for tongue until Fili turned his head.  “I quite like your looks though.  It’s not my fault if the kitten can’t handle them.”

He fell silent then, watching Fili.  The blond had crouched beside the nest and held out a hand to the kits.  His girl staggered out to meet him, ignoring her brother’s continued hissing.  One eyelid was still half gummed shut, giving her face a lopsided appearance, but she looked up at Fili with her good eye, mewled, plopped her head down in his palm and went to sleep.  Fili smiled so wide his cheeks hurt, and looked up at Kili, who was watching them with undisguised affection.

“Looks like I have competition,” the brunet teased.

“Well, she _is_ cuter and fuzzier than you are,” Fili said, scooping up the kitten and holding her close, letting her tiny purrs vibrate through his chest.

“I’m fuzzy,” Kili grinned, kneeling behind him and scraping his stubbly chin against Fili’s jaw in a movement he’d quickly learned tickled like hell.  The blond yelped and swatted him away before he could collapse into laughter.  “And I’m cute and you know it.”  Kili pouted at him, which was completely unfair in Fili’s opinion.

“Okay, maybe you’re a little cute.”  He glanced down at his bundle, and smiled.  “Can I name her?” he asked.  He didn’t really have a name in mind, but he definitely felt a connection to this little kit.  It was almost paternal.

Kili sighed behind him, pulling him close again and pressing a tickly kiss to his ear.  “You shouldn’t, Fili,” he murmured.  “They’re not yours.  Don’t name them, because then it’s only harder when they have to go.”

Fili’s throat closed suddenly, and he swallowed to clear it.  He’d completely forgotten that the kittens would be leaving in only a few weeks.  Kili seemed to know exactly what he was thinking and leaned down to pick up another kitten and place him in Fili’s lap.  “Even though they’ll be leaving we can still have fun while they’re here.”

***

That night Fili texted Kili when he got off shift at 2am, as usual.  What was unusual was Kili’s response.  –I’ll be right over.  Leave your uniform on.-  Mystified, Fili did as he was told.  Kili couldn’t possibly want to…?

Oh, he did.

Fili woke the next morning at 7 am to a good morning kiss that tasted of caramel coffee and Kili dashing out the door to open his shop for the day.  All in all, a very satisfying way to lose a few hours of sleep.

***

These after-work nighttime visits became a weekly occurrence, breaking up the long period between Fili’s days off when they could go out.  A month passed without break in this new routine.  The kittens grew day by day, growing ever more active and giving Amy fits as she tried to keep them in the nest.

One day Fili entered the shop to be greeted with an odd question.  “Bottle duty or distraction?”

“What?” Fili couldn’t think of any other response to that.

Kili rolled his eyes.  “Do you want to bottle-feed the kitten or let the others climb all over you?”

“I’ll be the distraction,” Fili offered after a moment’s consideration.  He loved playing kitty toy for the little things, but as they grew their claws got _sharp._   He plopped himself in the kittens’ enclosure and was instantly surrounded by mewing, wriggling little bodies.  He scooped his girl up to his chest, petting the others, ignoring the little orange tomcat who scrambled up his back to perch on his shoulders.

Kili smiled, bent to press a kiss to his lips, and lifted the white runt from the throng.  “She’s not gaining weight like she should, so I’m supplementing her diet with formula,” he explained, settling outside the enclosure and folding a towel in his lap.  He placed the kitten in the bowl of his crossed legs and offered her a tiny bottle.  She didn’t seem particularly interested until he held her head still with one gentle hand and pressed the nipple against her mouth, dribbling a bit of formula onto the towel.  She latched on immediately and began to suckle loudly.

Kili smiled down at her, then over at Fili, the hand holding the bottle never shifting.  “You’ll make a great dad someday,” Fili commented offhandedly.

“No way,” Kili rolled his eyes, drawing the words out for emphasis.  “I want nothing to do with kids.  Noisy, messy, gross things.”  Just then the kitten in his lap made a loud sucking noise as she pulled away from the bottle, a small squirt of formula leaking out onto the towel.  Fili refrained from commenting that noisy and messy was exactly what the kittens were.  He just grinned to himself and turned his head to nuzzle into the soft fur of the kitten now meowing imperiously at him from his shoulder.

The next day he was surprised to receive a text from Kili while he was on duty.  He glanced at Dwalin before cautiously opening the picture message.  It was a self-taken shot of Kili, a kitten perched on his shoulder and an unbearably cute pout on his face.  Fili couldn’t help grinning at the caption that accompanied it: -I hate white kittens.  The little milk moustache doesn’t show!  We all miss you.-

“I don’t care if he’s legal, no sexting in the squad car,” Dwalin commented dryly, and Fili put away his phone with a blush.

The only indication that Kili was as upset as Fili about the approaching departure of Amy and her kittens was the increase in the frequency of his nighttime visits, from once to three times a week, then to every other night.  They continued to go on dates on Fili’s day off, out to dinner or a movie, and Fili would then stay over at Kili’s apartment. 

Fili did notice that no matter how many times Kili spent the night the younger strenuously resisted any attempt to keep any of his things there.  He refused to leave clothes or even a toothbrush of his at Fili’s house.  Fili thought it a little odd that Kili, who’d been so eager to take their relationship to the next level, didn’t seem to want it to progress any farther.  He shrugged it off.  Kili was still so very young after all, and Fili himself hadn’t ever had a relationship this serious.  Despite these minor problems, Fili had never been happier in his life.

***

At last the dreaded day arrived.  Kili texted Fili the previous day, and the blond joined him in the shop at 10 the next morning.  The kittens were now eight weeks old, rambunctious and energetic.  Kili picked them up one by one to press his face into their fur, murmuring something Fili couldn’t hear.  Watching him say goodbye to Amy had to be among the most heart-wrenching things Fili had ever seen.  The boy finished his farewell of the kittens and simply sat for long minutes with Amy in his lap, head bowed and whispering to her.

While he was occupied Fili said his own farewells to the kits, particularly his little calico.  She climbed to her favorite perch on his chest and curled up there with a happy little purr, and Fili almost broke down then and there.

Kili was perfectly dry-eyed as he gently picked up the kittens and placed them in a large cat carrier with a final kiss on each of their heads.  He left Fili’s kitten until last, but her turn had to come.  When Kili reached for her Fili drew back instinctively, clutching her close, and he knew he looked pleading as he gazed up at him.

“I’m sorry,” the younger whispered, leaning in to kiss Fili’s forehead.  “I know, but you have to.”

Fili gulped down the lump in his throat, lifting both hands to hold her.  He didn’t dare speak as he pried her tiny claws from his shirt and handed her over to Kili, closing his ears to her squeaks.  Kili kissed her head, held her out to Fili, who did the same, and closed the latch of the carrier with a click.  Fili reached over to pick up Amy, petting her with his head bowed until he was sure his face was under control.

Kili finally gently took her as well, coaxing her into her own crate with a treat.  Already the kittens were mewling, protesting this treatment, and Fili had to leave the room before he gave in to temptation and smuggled his girl out in his shirt.  He didn’t see the exact moment Amy’s owners, an elderly couple dressed in tight expensive clothes, arrived to take charge of their pets.  They spoke quietly to Kili, while Fili ventured over to the carrier and pushed one finger through the bars to scratch the ears of any kittens he could reach.  He hadn’t quite gotten to all of them when the kennel was lifted from his hands by an apologetic Kili and handed to one of the owners.

They thanked both of them for caring for the cats, the words an indistinct buzzing in Fili’s ears.  It was when the door closed behind them, cutting off the kittens’ cries that the tears finally fell.  He couldn’t find it in himself to resist as Kili drew him into a tight embrace, burying his face in the juncture of Kili’s neck and shoulder and trembling all over as he suppressed the tears forcefully.  A cop did not cry over fucking _cats_ , for God’s sake!

Be that as it may, he couldn’t seem to stop.  “I know,” Kili murmured against his hair.  “I know.  And it never gets easier.  Please, it helps to have you here.”

Well then, they could comfort each other.  “Do you think they’ll let me have her?” he asked plaintively, not daring to look at Kili’s face.

“Not her,” the brunet sighed.  “They want her for breeding, since she already looks like a champion and has a good temperament.  Maybe you could have the runt, but not her.”  Fili groaned, pushing harder into the warm skin of Kili’s neck.  If this was what it was like owning pets, he wanted nothing of it ever again.

***

When Kili turned up at his apartment the next day during the lunch hour it was a surprise.  Fili hadn’t dressed or showered yet, and he opened the door in response to Kili’s knock with ill grace.

“What’re you—oh, it’s you, Kili,” he said, startled.  The brunet stood in the hallway, cradling a towel-covered box in his arms and grinning from ear to ear. 

“I have a proposal for you,” was his greeting as he hopped across the threshold.  He uncovered the box with a flourish and held it out for Fili’s inspection.

The tiny black puppy inside it looked up at Fili, yawned, and it’s long tail thumped against the cardboard as it began to wag.  “Kili, what is this?” Fili asked, though he couldn’t help reaching into the box to let the pup sniff his hand.

“He’s the next best thing to your kitten.”  Kili was almost wriggling with excitement himself.  “He’s the runt of his litter.  The breeder let me have him cheap since he’ll never be show-quality.  I checked, your apartment allows pets, and you struck me as being more of a dog-person anyway.”

Fili scooped the puppy up with one hand, placing him on the floor.  He looked around for a moment before he set off across the hardwood with a purpose, long legs and tail flopping about as if they weren’t entirely under control.  Fili couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

“No one else wants him?” he asked, to be sure.

Kili shrugged.  “I’m sure I could find a buyer, but I thought you might need him more.”

Fili glanced at the dog, who sniffed at the cabinet where he kept his trashcan and then sneezed so violently that he fell over.  Well, it was sudden, but he’d been doing a lot of impulsive things lately, hadn’t he?  “Does he have a name yet?” he asked.

Kili could apparently sense his victory as he laughed through his response.  “Of course he does.  I thought you’d appreciate the name Rookie.”

Fili didn’t know whether to laugh or groan.  He settled on a kiss, feeling that lovely smile against his lips.

***

Luckily Rookie was already house-trained.  Fili wasn’t sure he could handle that himself.  He was still adjusting to the various intricacies of sharing his life with another living creature that needed to be fed and walked and demanded his attention at four in the morning.  Within a few days the floor of his apartment was strewn with multicolored toys and overturned food bowls as Rookie preferred to scatter his kibbles across the floor before eating them.  Well, maybe it was accidental; his paws were so big for his body that he tended to knock things over.

He seemed under the impression that he belonged to Fili and Kili together, and on the nights Kili didn’t spend the night Rookie could usually be found laying in front of the door, looking mournfully out for his missing master.  Of course, the nights that Kili stayed over were hard on him too, as he’d be locked out of the bedroom for long periods of time (“He doesn’t get to watch, Kili, that’s _weird_ ”).

Fili had quickly learned that he could take Kili apart wonderfully easily with fingers and tongue alone, and he knew when he was doing well because Kili got _deliciously_ vocal.  It was two days after Rookie’s arrival that he found this was apparently not the best thing to indulge in, at least at his place.

They’d only just started, and at Kili’s first loud cry a plaintive, shrill howling went up on the other side of the door.  Instantly Fili scrambled from the bed, tumbled to the floor, panic clouding his thoughts.  What could have happened for his pup to make that noise?  What if he was hurt?

It was when he was halfway across the room that he realized there was no movement from Kili’s direction and glanced over his shoulder.

The brunet was still sprawled out over the bed, skin sheened with sweat, on arm thrown over his face as he shook with what seemed to be a combination of laughter and frustrated tears.

“I swear to God, Fili, if you get that dog now I will take him back,” he threatened.  “Get back up here, now!”

“But he—“ Fili started, looking indecisively between bed and door.

“He’s _fine,_ ” Kili interrupted.  “He heard me and doesn’t know what’s going on.  Back here now.”

“But—“

“ _Now!_ ”

Sure enough, Rookie subsided fairly quickly, though he was waiting for them when they eventually emerged.  He ran to Kili, whining, twining around his legs and wapping him with his tail.  He shot a betrayed look at Fili, much to Kili’s amusement.

“Aw, it’s alright boy, I’m okay,” he reassured the dog, crouching to be licked all over.  “He wasn’t hurting me too much.”

Fili glowered at him.

***

Two weeks later, and rather than going out to eat Fili had invited Kili for dinner at his place.  He’d grilled burgers, which were pretty much the peak of his culinary abilities.  Kili was wonderfully appreciative anyway, devouring two in the space of a few minutes and chattering the entire time.

Fili wondered vaguely where he put it all as the brunet reached over and stole a fry from Fili’s plate, his description of the most recent episode of a sci-fi TV show not missing a beat.  “—but then it turns out the Reavers are still after them.  They can’t outrun them and they’re gaining so they send it into a stall and _whoosh!_ ” He shoved the fry into his mouth to have both hands free to gesture with his description, illustrating the tight turn the spaceship had apparently executed.

Fili wasn’t thinking, just watching as Kili’s eyes lit up and he almost knocked his chair over backward in his continued hand waving.  He didn’t even mean to say it, but the next thing he knew it was spilling from his lips.

“I love you.”

Kili stopped mid-word, mouth half open and hands frozen in midair collision.  He gaped at Fili for several long moments, long enough for the blond’s brain to catch up with what had just happened and for a thought to begin to form: _oh shit…_

He reached across his small kitchen table.  “Kili, I’m sorry, I—“

The boy didn’t wait to hear it, his chair clattering over as he bolted for the door before Fili could even work out what had gone so wrong. 

“Kili, wait!”  He dashed after him, slamming the front door of his apartment into the wall of the hallway with the force of his push.  “Kili!”

Kili was fast and long-limbed, but Fili was much more used to sprinting for his job, and caught him just as he was unlocking his Honda.  Fili grabbed his arm, feeling the muscles tense under his fingers.

“Kili, look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.  I won’t do it again.  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.  I…” he was babbling, trying to repair whatever he’d done.  “Please, don’t…at least say something,” he pleaded.

A response at last: “Let me go.”  Kili’s voice was flat and _cold_ and Fili drew away as if burned.  He’d never heard that tone before, not from Kili, utterly devoid of emotion and almost hostile.  Kili yanked his door open and scrambled in, one elbow striking the horn as he situated himself and tried to start the engine in the same movement.  Fili scampered back out of the way as Kili roared away, tires screeching as he ran the stop sign at the parking lot exit.

From the apartment, he heard Rookie start to howl.

***

-Kili, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to upset you.  Please text me-

***

-Why won’t you talk to me?  Please answer-

***

-I was so stupid.  I shouldn’t have said that.  Please-

***

-I miss you-

***

“I’m sorry, I dunno, I thought maybe since you won’t answer texts, you might pick up the phone.  Stupid, I know.  I just…I don’t really know what I’m doing.  I guess I’ll take a hint.  I’ll um…I’ll just…bye.”

***

-God dammit Kili, you could at least tell me what I did that was so wrong!  I thought we were-

Fili glared at his phone, and after a moment’s thought he cancelled out of that message without sending it.  He’d probably typed out a dozen such messages in the two days since he’d left that voicemail.  Kili hadn’t responded to his texts spread over the three days prior to that.

He slapped his flip phone shut, head thudding against the car door as he flopped over morosely.

Dwalin glanced at him from the driver’s side of the unmarked car.  “Well, you must have cared about him.  I’ve never seen you being so melodramatic.”

“Not helping,” Fili growled.  “I’m fine, I just need to be _doing_ something, not sitting here bored!”  The glove box of the junker they were stuck in made a hollow thumping sound as he kicked it.

Dwalin glared at him, but softened quickly.  “Do I need to go talk to him?”

Fili almost laughed.  “No, Dwalin, I don’t need you playing scary uncle for either of us.  He’s an adult, I’m an adult, he can make his own decisions and I can handle them.”

Dwalin shrugged, turning to look out the window again.  Fili sighed, scrunching down in his seat, telling himself that he did _not_ look like a sulky teenager.  But really, Dwalin giving romance advice?  He thought he’d heard that the man had a boyfriend, but Fili couldn’t imagine _how._   And speaking of boyfriends, would it kill Kili to tell him what he’d done wrong?

Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, but it wasn’t really so bad that Kili had to cut him out of his life completely.  He thought he’d done well over the last week, going on with his life and resisting the urge to turn up at either Kili’s shop or apartment.  As much as he cared for the boy—he carefully avoided the word ‘loved’ even in his own mind—he could see when he wasn’t wanted.  It was only times like this, when he was trapped with nothing to occupy his hands and mind, that he was terribly tempted to text him again.

The tumbledown trailer across the street was the target of this stakeout, Fili and Dwalin having been sent to aid narcotics with a possible meth lab.  The local branch was small and so traffic cops occasionally ended up with stake out duty.  Dwalin had parked them across the street where the lowering sun glanced off their windows, hiding them from anyone inside the house.  They couldn’t move on it without proof, and so Fili and Dwalin were set to watch for it.

There were still a few hours of daylight left though, and Fili couldn’t imagine that anything would happen until after dark.  He fiddled with the cord of their radio mike until Dwalin slapped his hand away.  He pulled his phone out and tapped away at the buttons, scrolling mindlessly through contacts until he stopped dead at Kili’s picture.  It was the one he’d sent Fili, of himself and the kitten, and for a moment he longed to call Kili, to hear his voice even if it was just his voicemail.

He slammed the phone shut and chucked it to the floor.  Dwalin glanced at him and opened his mouth to speak, but was distracted by movement outside the car.

The man appeared to be heading for the trailer, but changed direction when he saw them.   Dwalin rolled down the window to his knock, Fili reaching surreptitiously for the gun that wasn’t on his hip.

“What do you want?” the man—no, boy, a teenager—demanded.

“Just having a smoke,” Dwalin said, holding up the pack of cigarettes that had been sitting in his lap.  “Too damn hot for it outside.  Want one?”

The boy started to reach for them, then his eyes drifted to Fili.  In a flash of fear he recognized the boy he’d run down a few weeks before.  Unfortunately, he seemed to remember the incident as well.  “Hey, you’re a cop!” he exclaimed, then spun on his heel and took off running.

“Fili—“ but he didn’t hear the rest of Dwalin’s sentence as he wrenched his door open and tore after him.  Finally, something to do!

Dwalin was pounding after him, rapidly catching the boy, who was fiddling with something at his front, stumbling, and Fili’s blood was singing with the exhilaration of the chase…

The boy skidded to a halt, whirling, and the first gunshot was an explosion in Fili’s hearing.  The second mingled with a jolt in his abdomen, the force dumping him to the ground.  It was then that the pain hit, a lance through his right side just below his ribs.  He could hear the banging of gunfire through his own screams.  By the sound Dwalin was emptying his own weapon as seven shots later the sounds ceased.

Then Dwalin was at his side.  “Oh shit, Fili, I need you to roll over, come on—“ when his back left the concrete it was sticky and wet, and his vision spotted out for a moment from the agony.  Dwalin was swearing frantically, pressure shoving at his front and back.

“Kili.  I want Kili,” he said, or thought he did, he couldn’t really tell.  One of Dwalin’s hands left his body, the elder cop scrambling to call for an ambulance.

“I want Kili,” he insisted, trying to sit up, and then slumped back into darkness.

***

“C’mon, Rookie, that’s enough ball for tonight,” Kili called.  The black puppy in front of him gave him a non-comprehending look, plopped down, and started scratching an ear.  “Why aren’t you…shit.”

Kili puffed his cheeks out in a sigh.  “I mean Shadow.  Come on Shadow.”  The dog stood and trotted over obediently, waiting while Kili clipped the leash to his collar and started for home.  “I’m probably giving you a complex, poor guy, calling you the wrong name all the time.  I don’t even know why I do that.”

Shadow sniffed around the legs of a bench, sighed heavily, and lay down on the sidewalk, apparently purely for the purpose of looking mournfully up at Kili.  “Don’t look at me like that!  I’m _not_ thinking about him!  He was just a good fuck.  That’s _all._   I don’t need him or anyone else.”

Why did dogs insist on looking so damn _understanding_ when you talk to them?  Kili groaned and tugged at the leash, pulling the puppy to his feet again and continuing back to his shop.  “I shouldn’t keep talking to you.  People will think I’m crazy,” he muttered.

They reached his building and Kili paused at the sight of his newly repaired window.  “ _Fuck!_ ” he exploded suddenly, kicking viciously at the brick wall.  “Fuck everything!  He just would have left anyway!  Good things never stay and I was stupid to think it could work.  I let my guard down and he goes and says _that_ and I might actually have meant it if I said I loved him and I just… _Fuck!_ ”  He slid down the side of the building, pulling at his own hair.  Somehow, telling himself he didn’t care didn’t make him feel any better.

Shadow whined and clambered onto his lap, licking his face and breathing dog breath up his nose.  “He could at least have tried a little harder, if he meant what he said,” Kili muttered, wrapping his arms around the dog.  He told himself the moisture on his cheeks was slobber, not tears, especially with people walking by and glancing down at him.  “If he loved me he wouldn’t have given up on me like that, right?  People _suck!_ ”

Shadow whined at him, wriggling and wagging.  “Whatever, I know.  I should just forget him, huh?”  He stood, glancing around before he scrubbed a hand across his eyes.  He opened the door of his shop and Shadow scrambled past his legs and dove nose-first into the water dish.

“I wish I could do that with a beer right now,” Kili muttered, hanging up the leash.  He picked his phone up off the counter, checking automatically for new messages.

Nothing.  “Of course,” Kili sighed, dialing his own voicemail.  “He gave up, didn’t he?”  Even so he lifted the phone to his ear, retrieving a message from the memory.  “I’m sorry, I dunno…”

Kili closed his eyes, not really hearing the words but instead the tone, the broken quality of Fili’s voice, the way his tongue stumbled.  _I did that,_ a gleefully masochistic part of his mind whispered.  _He loved me and I loved him and I was so scared of it that I fucked it all up._   The message ended with that small, resigned ‘bye’, and Kili held his phone in his hand for a long moment, finger hovering over the 2 of the keypad.  Fili’s speed dial.

“No!” he snapped finally, startling Shadow.  “I won’t.  He probably doesn’t want to hear from me—“

As if to contradict his words the phone in his hand lit up with a buzz.  A single glance at the picture that popped up—a shot of Fili smiling gently, affectionately at Rookie—and Kili froze.  For a second his finger hovered over the screen, trembling as he debated whether to answer it.  Then, “God fucking dammit!”  He hurled the phone at the wall.  It struck with a clatter and bounced off, safe in the nigh-indestructible case he’d bought for exactly that reason.  “Why am I supposed to know what to do?” he bellowed after it.  “I don’t even know what I want!”

Shadow crawled over to him, belly low and tail tucked, and licked gently at his ankle.  Kili sighed, crouching to scratch his ears.  “Alright, lets get you put to bed so I can go home and get fucking drunk.”

He’d only just locked Shadow in his kennel and started filling bowls for all the dogs when his phone buzzed again.  “Is he drunk-dialing me now?” he asked a malamute, getting a whuff in response.

Then it rang again as he was feeding the cats, and _again_ in his pocket as he was locking up.  “What the fuck—“ He pulled it out and checked missed calls.  All four from Fili.  This had progressed beyond a drunk-dial now.  The screen froze momentarily as the phone processed yet another call, then Fili’s picture flashed up once more.

“What…” Kili swiped his thumb across to answer the call, holding it up to his ear cautiously.

It wasn’t Fili’s voice, but Dwalin’s that he caught in midsentence.  “—don’t care _what_ your issue is but he’s asking for you and if you don’t get your sorry ass down here—“

“Dwalin, what’s going on?  What happened?” Kili interrupted, his blood running cold in horrible premonition.

“Fili was shot tonight you little shit,” the cop snarled.  “He’s at the community hospital and you—“

Kili didn’t hear the rest.  The phone dropped from nerveless fingers as he sprinted for his car.

***

Thorin listened to the nurse’s words through an odd kind of buzzing.  He only caught a few phrases here and there.  “Major tissue damage from the exit wound,” was one, and “mostly managed to reconstruct his liver,” another.  It took a moment for him to realize she had stopped speaking and was looking at him expectantly.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, shaking his head to clear it.

“We had enough blood for the emergency surgery, but because he has a fairly rare blood type and may require more over the next couple days we would appreciate it if we could test yours for a match,” the nurse repeated patiently.

“Oh.  I don’t know if mine—“ A clatter at the emergency room entrance down the hall interrupted him.  Both he and the nurse glanced that direction.

“I need to see Fili Durin.  Fili Durin!”  A muttered response from the receptionist.  “I’m his boyfriend!  So where is he?!”

She must have pointed him the right way, because the next moment a boy was sprinting down the hall.  Thorin stared, blinked, and stared again.

Dark stubble stained his cheeks, and he was almost as tall as Thorin himself, but the brown eyes staring back at him could have belonged to Dis.  “Fili Durin?” was all he said as he skidded up to them.

The nurse pointed to his closed door.  “You can’t go in now, dear,” she said kindly.

“The hell I can’t!” the boy snarled.  “I’m his _boyfriend_ , I need to—“

“Kili,” Dwalin interrupted from his seat beside the door.  “You can’t right now.”

Thorin felt a little faint.  It couldn’t be, not here and now…

“Why the fuck not?” Kili demanded, bristling. 

The nurse apparently decided to let Dwalin sort that out, and turned back to Thorin.  “Sir, if we could test your blood for a match—“ Kili stepped between them, thrusting out his left arm.

“Test mine,” he said firmly.  “I’ll give you anything he needs”

“Kili?”  That was Fili’s voice, faint through the door, cracked with pain and slurred with the meds.  “Is that Kili?  I want Kili!”

The nurse glanced indecisively over her shoulder, and sighed.  “I’ll go in and check with the doctor if you can see him,” she said at last.

It felt like a wait of hours, though in reality it was probably less than a minute.  Kili paced the hallway like a caged wolf, eyes dark and mistrustful whenever they landed on Thorin.

“He’s Fili’s uncle, lad,” Dwalin sighed finally.  “Leave him be.”

Fili’s cries for Kili continued, and Thorin had to sit down beside Dwalin, feeling weak in the knees.  This couldn’t possibly be _their_ Kili, couldn’t be, couldn’t have Fili crying his name with obvious distress, couldn’t be gazing helplessly at the door with tears running from Dis’s brown eyes.  At long last the door opened again, and the nurse stepped out.

“We need the blood as fast as possible, so that first,” she said, barring Kili from entering only by physically planting herself in the doorway.  “ _Then_ you can see him, as long as you don’t stress him too much.”

Kili refused to be taken to a different room for his blood to be drawn, and couldn’t stay still as the nurse took a tablespoon from his left arm for testing.  As soon as the needle was out he was sliding from her grip, waving away attempts to bandage his elbow and heedless of the blood that trickled down his forearm.  He shoved past her into the room.

Thorin couldn’t follow immediately as a sample of his blood was taken too, so he didn’t get to see the initial reunion. It was only a couple moments later that he followed, and paused at the sight.

Kili was sprawled half into the hospital bed, pressing kisses to any part of Fili’s face that he could reach while he garbled out apologies, “I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot, I’m sorry, I love you, I love you, I’m sorry, I love you,” while Fili had buried his hands in thick dark hair and kept up a hoarse repetition of Kili’s name.

Looking at them there, foreheads pressed hard together and tear tracks streaking both faces, Thorin could see the similarities of the cheekbones, the jawlines, things you wouldn’t notice at first glance.  _No…_

Fili was white and weak from blood loss, and the doctors were still monitoring his vital signs, working efficiently around Kili’s long sprawled legs.

“Thank God he’ll be okay,” Dwalin breathed beside him.  “I think it might have killed Kili.”

 _Oh poor boys, I might destroy you both myself,_ Thorin thought, drawing an orderly aside to whisper a request.

***

Two hours later had a slightly woozy pair curled up together in the hospital bed.  Kili was still feeling dizzy from the pint of O negative that was now pumping through Fili’s veins.  Fili was more lucid than he had been earlier, though still heavily medicated.  He had a hand clenched in Kili’s long hair, and the other had all four limbs tangled around his boyfriend, careful of his bandaged side.  Kili traced nonsense patterns on Fili’s chest, occasional letters or shapes in the mindless movements.

“Did you tell Dwalin I’ll be ready for my shift tomorrow?” Fili asked blearily.

Kili rolled his eyes.  “No, you dolt.  For the sixth time, you’re out of work for about the next month.”

Fili whined wordlessly at him, swatting weakly.  “You’re really weird when you’re all drugged out, you know that?” Kili laughed, ignoring the ineffectual blows against his chest.

“’m fine,” Fili muttered.  “I just feel all…weird.”

“Yes, that would be the drugs.”

A groan, and Fili was pulling Kili closer to press his face into the younger’s chest.  “I love you,” Kili whispered without really thinking about it.  He’d said it so many times over the last hours that it slipped out almost automatically.  This time, however, he got a response as Fili glared up at him. 

“Then why’d you leave?” he complained.

Kili sighed.  “Do we have to have this conversation _now_?”  Fili’s scowl deepened.  “Alright, alright,” he grumbled, leaning down to kiss Fili’s hair.  “But you have to promise to remember it, got it?  I’m only going to say it once.”

A nod against his chest.

“I was scared,” Kili confessed in a whisper.  “I kept telling myself that this was only about the sex.  That I wasn’t any more attached than that because that way when you left I wouldn’t be upset.  And it was working well enough, I could tell myself that was all it was.  Then you said you loved me and I was about to tell you I love you too.  And when I thought about it I realized I would have meant it with all my heart.  I was afraid that I’d say that, and that would make it real, and then you would leave and I don’t want my heart broken.”

He closed his eyes, unable to face Fili’s accusing gaze.  The blond was silent for a long time, long enough that Kili was afraid he’d fallen asleep.  Then, “I love you.  Not loved.  Love you.”

“What?” Kili asked, terribly confused.

“You said I _loved_ you.  That’s wrong.  I still do.”

Kili let out a slightly hysterical laugh.  “Are you serious?  _That’s_ all you’re focusing on?”

“Mmhmm.”  Fili shrugged.

“You are so drugged.”

“Mmhmm.”

The door clicked as it opened, Fili tensing in his arms and twisting to look.  Kili ran a soothing hand through his hair, craning to see who it was himself.  Fili’s uncle—Thorin, Dwalin had called him—peered in at them with the oddest expression on his face, something between sadness and disgust, and Kili drew Fili closer instinctively.  Thorin stared for a moment, then gave him a nod and closed the door as he left.

“I get the feeling your uncle doesn’t like me much,” Kili observed, shifting to a better position, wincing as circulation returned to the arm Fili’s head had been pillowed on.

“He’s just mad I didn’t tell him about you,” Fili yawned, clearly almost asleep.  “I brought a boyfriend home in high school, and he went full lawyer mode on the poor guy.  Wanted to make sure he was ‘suitable’ for me or something.  After that I’ve done my best not to tell him about any of my dates.  I was kind of trying to figure out how to tell you that I want you to meet my slightly crazy uncle.”

Kili laughed and started to comment that had Fili brought it up he probably would have run even faster, but then Fili gave a little raspy snore, and Kili decided it could wait until Fili was a little more sober.  He drifted off as well, a possessive arm curled around Fili’s waist.

***

Thorin stared down at the piece of paper on the desk in front of him, hands shaking.  He had to be mistaken.  Had to be.  It was a mistake.

He’d watched them over the last week, seen the absolute devotion from both of them.  Kili hadn’t left the hospital once, pleading with Dwalin with wide watery brown eyes until the cop gave in and agreed to care for Kili’s animals, as Thorin did for Fili’s new puppy.  Kili ate in the hospital cafeteria, slept curled up in Fili’s bed with the folding cot that the nurses had pulled out for him ignored, and bought Fili a stuffed dog from the gift shop (“It’s not Rookie, but it’s close!”).

All of that was damning, yes, but what had really hit Thorin was the way the pair looked at each other.  When their eyes met it was with almost uncomfortable intensity, and it gave him the feeling that when they were together the rest of the world was only so much unimportant background noise.

He flipped the paper over, stared at the blank white back, and turned it back to the front.  Of course this changed nothing, and he was forced to return to the certainty that it must be wrong, or he wasn’t reading it correctly.

A sharp rap at his office door signaled Dwalin’s entrance; the cop looked as worn out as Thorin felt.  “Just got back from visiting the lovebirds,” he said, flopping into the chair on the other side of the desk, head falling back over the headrest.  “It’s nauseating.”

Thorin swallowed down the fluttery feeling in his throat at ‘lovebirds’.  He waited until Dwalin looked back at him, confused by his silence, before he shoved the document across the desk to his friend.

Dwalin was an experienced cop, he knew how to read a DNA comparison.  “What’s this, Thorin?”

“Just read it and tell me what it says,” Thorin requested quietly.

Dwalin pored over the sheet for about 30 seconds.  “Well, first degree relatives.  Parent and child or siblings…hang on.”

He’d spotted the names on the two profiles.  Thorin waited as his face went from confusion to shock to horror.  He looked up at Thorin, mouth opening soundlessly for long moments.

“I’d hoped I was misreading it,” Thorin said heavily.

Dwalin looked down at the paper again.  “He can’t possibly be our Kili.  I _checked_.  The first time I picked him up. A boy named Kili of the right age, of course I checked!  Kili Cook’s records were just as scrambled as Kili Durin’s, but they conflicted so I assumed that it couldn’t possibly…” he paled at his next thought.  “ _What are we going to tell Fili?_ ”

“I don’t know,” Thorin mumbled, barely resisting the urge to just lay his head down on the desk and give up.  “I don’t know how we can tell them this.  I don’t know if we _should_ tell them this.”

“Wouldn’t you want to know?”  Dwalin asked, far too reasonably for the situation in Thorin’s opinion.  “If it were you and Frerin, wouldn’t you rather someone had told you?”

“How am I supposed to know that?”  Thorin snapped, pulling at his hair in frustration.  “I have no idea what to do!”

“Alright then, I’ll _tell_ you what to do,” Dwalin said firmly.  “You wait until Fili is up and about and you tell them everything.  You let them be grown ups and work out what they do about it on their own.  They deserve to know everything about their relationship, especially when they’re so serious about it, and they also deserve to be trusted with their own lives.”

Thorin sighed, giving in and pressing his forehead to the surface of his desk as if with enough force of will he could melt through the wood.  “I’ll take your word for it, Dwalin.”

The cop snorted.  “Yeah, you better,” he muttered, just loud enough for Thorin to hear and smile just a little.

***

“No no no, I can do this myself,” Fili grunted as Kili jumped to catch him yet again.  The walk up and down the hallway had been taxing but invigorating, as he relished the chance to stretch his legs for the first time in a fortnight.  He wouldn’t be going anywhere fast for a while, but he was at least moving under his own power.  And he wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of asking Kili to leave the room so he could ask a nurse for a bedpan again.

He tottered back into his room and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, cautious of the way his healing skin pulled over his stitched-up wounds.  Kili was still hovering around him, arms half-outstretched and ready to catch if necessary.

“See?  I’m fine,” Fili insisted, grinning up at him.

“Yeah, you are,” Kili agreed amiably, plopping down next to him with enough force to set the mattress bouncing.  “And you’ll be going home in a week and I get to keep you in bed for another two.”

“Good luck with that,” Fili muttered.  “I can’t wait to be moving again.”

“Not on my watch.  And don’t think I won’t use any methods necessary to keep you down,” Kili smirked, leaning in to nip puppy-like at his ear.

Fili growled and cuffed at him.  “Can’t you wait until I get home?”

“It’s been three _weeks_ , Fee,” Kili whined at him, leaning on his shoulder and pouting.  “It’s been so long and you’re so _tempting_ …”

Fili couldn’t help laughing at that.  “So are you,” he murmured, turning his head and capturing Kili’s lips in a kiss as he reached down and squeezed the brunet’s ass.

Kili’s delighted gasp was answered by a loud cough from the doorway.  Kili’s head jerked toward the sound, entire body tensing.  Fili recognized the voice and took his time turning, and may or may not have trailed his tongue along Kili’s jawline in the process.

Thorin stood braced with a hand on either side of the doorframe, looking faintly green.  _Come on, uncle,_ Fili thought, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, _I’m twenty-five, you have to accept that I’m an adult eventually._   He did not give in to the slightly childish urge to inform Thorin that he was interrupting and continue whether his uncle left or not.  “Can we help you?” he asked eventually, when it didn’t seem that Thorin was going to speak.

“Oh…yes,” Thorin forced out, clearing his throat nervously.  “It’s good you’re here, Kili.  I need to talk to you both.”

It was at that point that Fili sat up and really listened.  Thorin _never_ got nervous.  He carried an air of dignity about himself at all times.  Fili had never once heard him stutter or stumble over his words.  But he was doing so now, and it was unsettling.  Fili reached out for Kili’s hand, finding it and squeezing.  Kili glanced at him, confused, but was clearly starting to pick up on his nerves.

Thorin pulled the bedside chair across the floor to where he could sit on it facing them both, and slumped down in it, apparently unable to look at either of them.  Finally, “Fili, do you remember your brother?”

Fili blinked.  “I don’t have a brother.”  _I don’t think…_

“You do,” Thorin said flatly, and Kili’s fingers tightened painfully around Fili’s.  “You’re five years older than him.  The first foster family to take both of you kept you for several months.  Your brother, though, was a hyperactive toddler not quite two years old, and they were forced to give him up within a couple of weeks.”

Kili’s normally darker skin had gone unhealthy, greyish pale, even before Thorin continued speaking.  “I kept looking for your brother, but Kili’s records were so scattered and after a while the paper trail on Kili Durin just kind of faded out.  Dwalin and I have been working on reconstructing it for years, but it turns out we were looking under the wrong last name.”

The bones in Fili’s hand ground together under Kili’s grip, but Fili made no move to pull away.  He was shaking his head slowly, helplessly at Thorin.  “You can’t mean that _he_ …”

He looked to Kili for support, but none was coming.  The boy stared back at him, wide eyes blank and almost wild.  “He’s not…he’s my boyfriend.  We kiss, we…he’s not!”  Fili protested, voice going higher with each word.

“Fili, we did a—“ Thorin began, but Fili talked right over him.

“I don’t have a brother!  I don’t!  I would remember that!  And why wouldn’t you tell me until now?” he wailed helplessly.

Thorin sighed.  “When I talked to Bofur, he told me the pair of you were very nearly inseparable, even though Kili could barely walk and couldn’t talk.  One of the few words he had was ‘Fee’.  When I found you in the system, when I picked you up, you didn’t mention him once.  I decided it would be easier if I let you forget about Kili until I found him and you could be together again.”

“And you still haven’t found him, so why are you telling me this?” Kili still hadn’t spoken or moved a muscle beside him, and his fingers were going numb from the brunet’s grip.

“We ran a DNA test, Fili,” Thorin said, pity in his voice and face.  “Kili’s your brother.”

Fili laughed, a high hysterical sound.  “Well then, the test is wrong.  We _can’t_ be.  It’s not possible.  Kili, tell him!”

“How could you have my DNA?” Kili asked, those frightening, frightened eyes finally turning on Thorin instead of Fili.  “How could you know this?  Why would you have my DNA tested, just because I have the same name as this brother of Fili’s?”

“Because you look almost exactly like my sister Dis,” Thorin replied, reaching up to rub the back of his neck with one hand.  “I admit it was mostly just a hunch.  It was after seeing how much you two look alike, and you have the same rare blood type, and then you have the right name as well—I pulled a few strings and had them run the test on the blood you gave for Fili.”

“So you did this test without asking either of us?” Kili continued, temper rising and he shifted, clearly ready to stand against Thorin if he needed to.  “Why should we believe you?”

A faint flush of anger spread to Thorin’s cheekbones.  “Why would I tell you this if it wasn’t true?  You make Fili happier than I’ve seen him in years.  I may not have been entirely honest about getting it done, yes, but I thought if I was wrong you wouldn’t ever have to hear about it.”

Kili scowled, fingernails digging into Fili’s skin.  “I still don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me, but that doesn’t change the facts!” Thorin snapped.  “You are Fili’s brother, Kili Durin, and—“

He didn’t get to finish.  Kili had gone even paler, and slumped back as his lips moved soundlessly, mouthing the name again.  _Kili Durin_.  Thorin’s voice petered out as Fili turned to Kili in concern.  He didn’t seem to be seeing them anymore, eyes flickering rapidly but never focusing.  “Kili?” Fili asked finally, tugging at their joined hands.

Kili bolted off the bed, stumbling to a halt as he was yanked back by Fili’s grip.  He glanced wildly between Fili and Thorin for a moment, settled on Fili, and he seemed to ground just a bit.

“Kili—“ Fili tried again, but he was interrupted by harsh lips on his, and a murmured “sorry,” against his mouth before Kili was gone.  He could do nothing but blink at his uncle, who looked as startled as he was.

 _Why would he run?_   Fili thought, confused.  _He told me he wasn’t leaving me again.  So that must mean he thinks Thorin’s right.  Something convinced him._

Fili stood as fast as his wounded side would allow, bracing himself on the bed as he hobbled for the bedside table.

“Fili, what are you doing?”  Thorin asked, standing to support him and receiving an elbow in his ribs in thanks. 

“I can stand myself,” Fili growled, finally reaching the small cabinet and wrenching it open.  “And I’m looking for my clothes.”

“Clothes?”  Thorin followed him as he turned and staggered for the bag that had been dropped in the bathroom doorway earlier, kicking aside the various toiletries that had spilled out of it.  “You’re not checking out for another week.”

“I’m checking out now,” Fili informed him, finally locating a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt in that bag and shucking his hospital gown.  “I’m going after him.  Now either drive me or call me a taxi.”

Something in his tone of voice apparently made it clear that he wasn’t taking any arguments, and Thorin didn’t say another word as he helped Fili into tennis shoes that he couldn’t tie himself.  In fact, Thorin stayed silent until they were seated in his car, Fili shifting uncomfortably on the leather upholstery.

“What exactly are you doing?” he asked at last.

Fili sighed.  “I’m fighting for him.  For this.  I don’t care if he’s my brother, I’m not letting this go.”

“But he’syour _brother_ —“

“I know!” Fili interrupted.  “But that doesn’t change how I feel.  I almost died, Thorin.  I thought I was going to.  And all I could think of was Kili.  I wanted to see his face again, just once.  I wanted to see him smile and hear his voice and hear him say my name and yeah I wanted to kiss him one more time.  I was so very angry with myself, because I was doing exactly what I promised I wouldn’t do and leaving him alone again.  So I think it’s safe to say I love him, and that this doesn’t change that.  I won’t force him into anything he doesn’t want, but I’m not letting this go without even a whimper.”

Thorin’s lips tightened but he didn’t speak, turning his eyes to the road and following Fili’s monosyllabic directions.  Fili sank down in his seat as much as his stitches would allow, already slightly embarrassed by his long speech, but his determination never wavering.  He paused at one intersection, considering for a long moment, while Thorin ignored the honking of other drivers swerving around them.  At last Fili directed him to turn left.

Kili would be at his shop.  He would have gone to the comfort of his animals.

He was right.  They pulled up outside Kili’s shop and Fili could see the familiar figure inside, seated on the floor in front of the kennels.  “Will you wait for me here?” he asked Thorin.  “Please,” he added in response to a raised eyebrow from his uncle.  Thorin nodded.

Fili stumbled his way to the door, biting his lip as the pain in his side increased, starting to think this might not have been the best idea.  But he could see Kili through the glass and he wasn’t going back on it now.  He had to put his body weight behind his shove against the door, and nearly fell through into the room when it opened.

Strong arms caught him around the middle.  “What are you _doing_ , you idiot?” Kili hissed, bracing Fili upright until the blond got his balance back.  “You should be in the hospital still.  What are you doing here?”

“I had to talk to you,” Fili said breathlessly.  He tried not to show how grateful he was when Kili led him gently to a chair and lowered him into it.  “I want to know why you left again.”

“Because he was right!” Kili sighed, reaching down to pull away the dog that was sniffing interestedly around Fili’s side.  “It was the name.  I remember the name now.  For some reason it didn’t click until I heard it out loud.  Kili Durin.  That’s the last name I had forgotten.”

“So?” Fili asked, trying to force Kili to meet his eyes, but the boy was already walking away, apparently concentrating fiercely on shooing the dog back into its kennel.

“What do you mean, ‘so’?” Kili demanded as he straightened, still not looking Fili in the eyes.  “I’m your _brother_ , Fili!  We can’t…there’s no more…I don’t even know why you’re here!”

Fili didn’t say anything, watching Kili silently.  Brown eyes flickered up to meet his gaze before Kili turned away again and started pacing.

“You know it’s not right!  I _can’t_ love you the way I do.  I mean, I don’t…I don’t know!”  Kili was pulling at his own hair, yanking it out of the bun so it swung loose around his shoulders.  Fili didn’t miss that hesitation, or what Kili had said.  _I can’t love you the way I do._   “It’s _wrong_.  Whatever we had before was wrong.  We were just confused, it wasn’t _real.”_

He meant to let Kili talk this out himself, meant to let the boy figure out what he wanted without Fili’s interference, but he couldn’t stop the pained noise that escaped him at that last sentence.  Nor could he help reaching out to Kili, just a twitch of his hand, but Kili noticed it. 

He really should have expected it; Kili was incredibly tactile and certainly the best comfort method for him was always physical contact, but it was still a bit of a shock when he suddenly had a lapful of Kili.  His long hair tickled against Fili’s neck as he buried his face in the elder’s shoulder, braced against Fili’s left arm, and he noticed that even now Kili was wary of his injured side.  He clung to Fili like a lifeline, and Fili did the same, breathing in the smell of his shampoo and the musky animalistic scent that was so uniquely _Kili._

“It was real to me,” he whispered into Kili’s hair, getting a nearly painfully tight squeeze around his ribs in response.

“But you didn’t know, before,” Kili muttered.  “We weren’t _brothers_ before.”

“And what exactly has changed?” Fili asked quietly.  “I don’t love you the way I would love a brother—at least, I don’t think I do, but I don’t have much frame of reference there.”  He waited to see if Kili would laugh at that, but nothing was forthcoming.  “I love you just the same as I did before, because nothing about you has changed.  You’re still the impossible, amazing boy that had me falling head over heels for him within a week.”

Kili snorted against his shirt, which Fili took for permission to continue.  “I don’t think I love you as a brother.  Not unless that means wanting your face to be the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning for the rest of my life.  It sounds so very corny, but I mean it.”

A small giggle, slightly less tinged with hysteria than Kili’s voice had been earlier.  “Look at me.”  Fili reached carefully with his right arm, curling a finger under Kili’s chin and forcing the boy to face him.  “I love you more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone.  I promise, I won’t do anything you don’t want, but I hope you’ll consider that before you decide to cut me out of your life.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Kili whispered.  “I don’t know what I want to do now, exactly, but…I still love you.  I won’t do that again.”

Fili sighed with relief, leaning in to press their foreheads together.  “That’s good at least.  Is it too much to say that I think I can face anything else life could possibly throw at us, as long as I have you with me?  Whatever you decide, I’ll never leave you alone, just like I promised.”

Kili smiled, a little shakily, and curled further into Fili’s arms.

***

**Six Months Later**

Fili pulled into the empty parking spot down the road from Kili’s shop, wincing as his car’s brakes loudly protested.  He was going to have to get those replaced eventually, much as he hated spending the money.  He leaned over to grab the bag of fast food out of his passenger seat, hauling it out behind him.

When he reached the pet store the sun was just right to allow him to peer in through the front windows without disturbing Kili inside.  His brother was bent over the counter, concentrating fiercely on a piece of paper.  His face didn’t show a trace of emotion but he fiddled incessantly with the simple silver band on his left ring finger.

Fili smiled to himself.  Even though he’d only had it for a few short weeks that ring had quickly become one of Kili’s biggest tells.  He only played with it like that when he was stressing about something.

“I brought you something,” Fili announced as he pushed open the door, flipping the sign around to ‘closed’.  Kili could take a lunch break today.

Kili’s head jerked up at his voice, and his face lit up in his usual infectious smile.  “Food!” he exclaimed when Fili set the paper bag on the counter, immediately plunging his arm elbow-deep into it and rifling around for the cheap burrito that he knew Fili would have brought him, before apparently remembering the blond’s presence.  “Hi,” he said, craning up for a kiss then returning to his search.

“You’re going to make yourself sick on those things, you know,” Fili commented, wrinkling his nose as Kili laughed triumphantly and finally removed his hand from the now-crumpled bag.

“Don’t care, it tastes good,” Kili stuck his tongue out at Fili and took a huge bite of his meal.  “Thank you, by the way.”

“No problem,” Fili shrugged.  “I needed to see you after having lunch with Thorin, and I figured you would be too distracted to eat.  What do you have there?”

“Oh that,” Kili gestured dismissively at the paper on his counter.  “I’m just trying to figure out a diplomatic way to tell these people that I can’t sell their mixed-breed puppies for more than a thousand dollars, or even more than two hundred.  And that I’m sure they have very good dogs and very good puppies, and I will certainly take them, but people won’t pay that for mixed-breeds.”

Fili nodded as if he understood what had just been said, waiting as Kili finally finished chewing his bite and swallowed it.  “So, how did it go with Thorin?”

Oh, Kili was good at pretending, but he was fiddling with his ring again, and Fili reached out to stop him before he gave himself a blister again.  “Better than I expected.  I told him that I’m still seeing you, and that’s not going to change. I pointed out that we have different last names, and unless you’re expecting to see it we don’t look all that much alike.  Unless someone finds the DNA results that he helpfully acquired, who’s going to know?  I expected him to threaten to withhold his support from me.  Again.  Because that’s worked every other time.”

Kili’s mouth was full but he rolled his eyes.  “But he actually told me that he pulled in several huge favors, and he got that DNA erased completely, along with any records of the test even being performed.”

“That’s great!” Kili mumbled, raising a hand to his mouth to avoid spraying crumbs everywhere.  “Why would you need to come see me after that?  Seems like you could wait until tonight to tell me.”

Fili sighed.  “Thorin got all excited when he saw my ring.  I don’t understand why he seriously thinks I might find someone else.”

“Won’t you?” Kili muttered.  His voice was light still, but Fili sighed at the ongoing argument.  “Won’t you want someone other than your little brother?”

“You keep saying that, and I keep telling you no,” Fili sighed.  “You can be stubborn when you feel like it.  What do you think these mean?”  He reached for Kili’s left hand with his own, twining their fingers so the matching silver bands clicked together.  “You’re it for me.  As long as you’ll have me that is.”

Kili grinned, using the grip on his hand to pull Fili in for a kiss.  “Hope you’re ready for forever, then.”


End file.
